A TRIBUTE TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE RAILA AMOLO ODINGA BY HON FCPA JOHN MBADI NG’ONGO, CABINET SECRETARY FOR THE NATIONAL TREASURY. .

If honour and love for one’s country were ever to be illustrated, your image, Right Honourable Jakom, Baba Amolo Odinga, Tinga, would illuminate that portrait. You embodied a patriot’s heartbeat, restless until the nation stood tall, tireless until justice was served.

Your faith in Kenya’s destiny was not born of convenience but of conviction. You believed, even when belief came at great personal cost, that this nation could rise above division and become a light to the continent.

You listened deeply and sincerely, seeking always to find balance, to forge consensus where others saw conflict, to heal where others sought to wound. That rare ability to unite reason with compassion will remain etched in our national memory.

Long before devolution became a constitutional promise, it was your dream. You saw it as the architecture of equality, the foundation upon which every Kenyan, from every corner, could stand with dignity. You not only conceived it; you nurtured it, defended it, and reaffirmed it, even in your later years, with a smile that masked pain, yet radiated faith in our shared destiny.

It is never easy to mourn one we called Baba. Yet in the stillness of this grief, we discover countless reasons to celebrate your life, the courage that defied defeat, the vision that shaped generations, the voice that taught us that dissent could coexist with patriotism.

Every decade, every election, every chapter of our nation’s story bears your imprint. You did not merely participate in history, you authored it.

Words are small vessels for the ocean that was your life. Yet even as we struggle to contain it, one truth endures: Kenya will never forget.

Rest well, Baba.

Your work here is done, but your spirit will continue to whisper through the conscience of a nation you so dearly loved.

Hon FCPA John Mbadi Ng’ongo, Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury.